James Barrett wrote:
Cecil Moore wrote:
It depends upon what you want your radiation pattern
coverage to be from your particular QTH. I orient my
130 foot dipole so that my radiation lobes point toward
the world's large land masses on 20m. The free demo
version of EZNEC available from eznec.com will tell you
what direction your lobes are pointing.

I tried using the demo version of EZNEC, but haven't figured it out yet.
I don't really know yet what I want my radiation pattern to be because
I've had an HF radio now for three weeks, and only a 10 meter dipole.

I would respectfully suggest that you don't need to worry too much
about radiation angle - yet. Sometimes we get so far into things that it
can become discouraging.

In any event, do go through the whole tutorial process at the beginning
of the manual.



Anyways, I'm not sure yet what to expect as far as making contacts.
Would I have a better shot from east or west, or would I have a better
shot north and south?

Here is one thing that relates a bit to that take off angle. As you go
up in frequency with that universal dipole, the antenna starts to get
"lobey". The radiation pattern is not the nice simple blob you get with
a halfwave dipole. It can get pretty interesting as you get higher and
higher in frequency.

So, I guess what I should have asked was, what would be the best
orientation for a dipole in New England in order to make contacts at
this time of year and at this point in the sun spot cycle.

So much depends on the frequency. The lobey pattern can make a dipole
less directional depending on frequency.

- 73 de Mike N3LI -